Assessments of the magnitude and factors affecting the turnover of Health workers in West Amhara Region, Ethiopia

Abstract

Background: Staff turnover can be described as the total movement of employees in and out of an organization. Turnover is a serious problem for the hospitals suffer the loss of job specific skills, disruption in quality health care service and incur the costs of hiring and training new workers. So this issue facing the hospital managers to provide quality health care for the community. Health worker turnover is a global problem, the problem more serious both in Africa & Ethiopia. West Amhara regional state public hospitals are also the victim of this problem. Objective: To assess health workers turnover and associated factors associated in West Amhara region public hospitals Ethiopia. Methods: A cross sectional retrospective document review& qualitative focus group discussion were conducted in west Amhara region public hospitals among five hospitals randomly selected. Documents of health worker from 2007-2011was reviewed & management team members in each the study hospitals were included in FGD. The data was analyzed using SPSS windows version 16.0. Univariate and multivariate analysis were done using chi-square test and binary logistic regression respectively. The results were presented by tables. Results: The finding of the present study revealed that among 885 health worker’s document reviewed 327 (36.9%) respondents were leaving the hospitals and higher proportion 237 (72.5%) of the health worker leaving the hospitals were in the age group 21-30 years. In multivariate analysis age, marital status, and service duration were independently and significantly associated with health workers turnover. Conclusion & Recommendation: The study showed that reasons for turnover/ leaving was lack of retention mechanism so that significant numbers may have been retained if retention strategies were formulated to promoting professional development, managerial support, or improved professional practice environment & providing both financial & non financial incentives had been introduced.